All Of Me, Loves All Of You - IshRa SS | Last Chp - Page 89 - Page 49

Originally posted by: Dilshika

Cute. ...awesome update!

Originally posted by: smilydear

Perfect Anni!

Originally posted by: VENBA

Brilliant update..

Really awesome..

And the last part..

You just displayed the Raman's emotions and his hurt so brilliantly..

Great job..👏👏

Originally posted by: exploringmyself

oops shagun mentioned .. not good

w8ing 4 anothr upd8

Author' Note -

Thank you to all my readers so far, silent and otherwise.

I am humbled by your support, love and response.

The title of the next chapter is inspired by a song I have loved, ever since I first heard it. It's titled 'Poison & Wine' by a musical duo named as 'The Civil Wars'.

I found a site where the meaning behind this song was explained and just couldn't think of anything more apt.

Am posting what I found on that site -

"Poison & Wine is a musical snapshot about the dichotomy of love - that while it can be the thing that destroys you, it can also be the very same thing that beckons and builds you. ... The longer you know someone - and the longer you allow someone to know you - the more the light and shadows inside each person become more vivid. This song was our attempt at being as brutally honest about the dangerous and beautiful process of knowing and being known."

Chapter 7 - Poison & Wine.

"All we shared was a mattress, and a lie, and an address
Baby I don't need you, well baby I don't need you
Once occupied by a goddess, now it's a room full of boxes
She said, "it's time to leave you" but baby I don't need you!
In a perfect world... her face would not exist
In a perfect world... a broken heart is fixed"
Billy Talent, Billy Talent II

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."
Elisabeth Kbler-Ross

He looks away chagrined after giving away the information involuntarily.

There is pin drop silence in the room post the revelation until finally she makes a small move and keeps her hand lightly over her husband'.

Her touch soothes him, a strange sense of calm and peace washing over him with it; making him close his eyes and let out a sigh as he finds his sense of equilibrium restored again.

He cannot pinpoint when or how it happened but it did somehow. With her, the urge to filter his words, be concise, mindful of what he spoke faded away. As time passed by, he grew so comfortable around Ishita he could speak his mind out, say anything and absolutely everything.

Sometimes that becomes the thing he adores the most about their relationship. At times like these, though, he hates it, hates it with the passion of a thousand suns.

She has made him drop his guard, with her he can say aloud the words he wouldn't have dared uttered even when he was by himself. Sharing anything with her is so easy; sometimes it makes him feel like the words that had been contained within him all along awaited her to let loose, to be free.

He mentioned it to her in passing the other day how he couldn't talk with Shagun, how despite sharing the same roof, a bed and having two children together he still felt an utter lack of companionship with her. On days like those when he needed someone to talk, he found himself wishing Shagun would listen to him and later would merely sigh and turn around on the bed to struggle with his demons until sleep would claim him.

He remembers aching for simple things like holding his wife' hand just because he wanted to, having her in his arms as they slept. He can still recollect feeling hollow and angry with everyone but mostly himself because his wife shunned him and for what, for seeking simple touches. She would cringe over his mere wish to hug her at times when he had been too happy or simply wanted to hold her close to him

The feeling of loneliness engulfed and enveloped him, as an unwanted lover on the nights when the woman he loved then, his wife would be sleeping mere inches away from him withholding her, dodging him is hard to forget.

He would ask her to simply sleep in his arms and she would have her barrage of excuses ready that took him apart each time he heard them,

"Not tonight Raman please I am too tired."

"Don't be so clingy Raman."

"Raman its already too hot please be on your side of the bed."

"Raman, can't you see I am so upset, your mother always keeps picking on me."

"Oh give me a break Raman, I have to work all day here too in this home I want to sleep now."

"Raman not tonight, I want to watch my favorite show. Just go to sleep will you?"

"Raman my back is killing me I can't cuddle with you just because you are in the mood."

Those nights when she made excuses of a backache he would volunteer to help her relax with a massage, to aid her, soothe her; his only selfish purpose being he wanted to feel close to her in whatever way he could and she would deny him even that.

"No Raman, you are horrible at it, you do like it some roadside burly guy would do I would rather sleep it off for the night go to a parlor tomorrow and get massaged by Aditi, she is wonderful and knows exactly all my sore points."

He would later learn there is no Aditi at the parlor his then-wife frequented. Those days when she made that excuse, she would state she had been out all day running errands when in reality she would be in the arms of his boss, her lover, in his bed giggling away with him at his foolishness. They would discuss what a loser her husband is, that he is the biggest fool that ever existed and he would buy it unaware the backache was her excuse to not let him touch her post her rendezvous with her lover, post the sessions with him that would have her tired.

The year Ruhi was born was the last of their marriage, the night Ruhi conceived the last time he made love to her, touched her after months of celibacy; only because she was too drunk to think clearly to object like all the previous times. He had been inebriated as well though less than she had been. Their daughter was the result of a drunken quickie he had with her mother after they returned from a celebration held by his then boss Ashok Khanna for bagging a huge contract. He had been the one who still had enough senses to put the comforter over his wife and himself before he too had fallen asleep.

He cannot figure out still, if it is pathetic of him to remember things which so much precision, remember how she had assented and he had been so happy, too happy in fact. Enough that he didn't bother getting undressed completely, happy enough to not mind she was mumbling nonsense. He could not understand her muttering until it struck him she was not with him in her mind. However, he was beyond the point from where he could turnaround, halt himself; buried in her, he was too far-gone and so he had carried on, done the deed and spilled his seed inside her. Only when he could move off her did it even come to his attention she had passed out.

The term baby that she kept repeating in those brief minutes, she was not addressing him, as he had tried to make himself believe then, he would know that too.

He still cannot forget how she had behaved like a harpy over the next few days after that night; or the packet of contraceptive pills he found in her drawer later.

Neither can he put out of his mind the trip to the doctor that confirmed Shagun was pregnant. He had been overjoyed, thrilled at the prospect of becoming a father once again, prayed that very instant he be blessed with a beautiful baby girl this time around to complete his little family while she went berserk asking the doctor how it could be possible, they better double-check her since she took birth control pills without fail. The doctor had to calm down Shagun explain to her sometimes those fail too especially if she had taken any other medication along with the contraceptives. She had vaguely remembered taking pills to ward off her hangover as well as that she had a mild cold and fever that week for which she was on medication.

She wanted their unborn child aborted as soon as possible, their Ruhi, but was too weak to take the strain and in her weakened state it could have been fatal to try it, enough to kill her. It was what made her relent and finally keep their baby, the fear of dying herself made her want to give birth to a child she didn't want from the beginning.

Try as he might he cannot forget any of it.

His Ruhi; unwanted by her mother even before her birth and unwanted by her father for the first five years of her life for a crime she never committed. He shudders to think what if Ishita had not happened to come in their lives. It took her presence to remind him how much he loves his daughter. How he cannot do without her.

In Ishita, he has found that companion, that wife, that lover.

He loves it that he can talk with her.

He hates it that he cannot filter his words in front of her in moments like these.

Moments like these make him hate Shagun even more, he wonders sometimes if he will be ever able to have a life where the tainted memories of his past would let him be and then reality smacks him right across the face. The truth makes him want to laugh as if he has lost his mind in those times, it makes him want to cry too when he realizes how pointless it is - to try to escape. The woman would always be a part of his life if not his heart whenever he would look at his children. He can break all ties with the woman he loved once, was married to once, how is he supposed to break ties with the mother of his children though, even if she is only their mother by birth?

His children, they are the only reasons he cannot bring himself to regret his past, for however bitter his past may have been, they are here because of that very past. To resent it, to shirk it off would mean discarding Ruhi and Adi too, he has lived far too long without his children already he cannot allow them to think anything untoward about themselves.

He has done it to Ruhi for far too long, in running from her he punished his little girl for a crime she never committed. In trying to escape his past, he allowed his judgement to eclipse and deprived a daughter of her father and his love when it should never have happened. He cannot let them ever think his resentment and hatred for their mother makes him resent or hate them.

He cannot ever allow his children to doubt his love for them ever again.

Unable to look at her, lost in his head he is still wondering what to do when he feels her feather-light kiss against the back of his hand as she holds his hand with her uninjured one.

Swallowing a lump, he closes his eyes for the briefest moment before looking at her again.

In her eyes, he finds no anger, disgust or judgement.

If at all, she understands and completely accepts him with a look on her face that lets him know that.

She gently squeezes his hand and it means more to him than any words she could have uttered in the moment, her touch says it all. She slowly turns his hand around and gingerly intertwines their fingers, laying them softly in her lap, letting him know he need not be ashamed, sorry for his little outburst.

She says no words and yet...yet in the moment he finds a strange sense of relief wash over him. The warmth of her touch, the softness of her hand, he finds they mean more to him than everything in the world combined.

This moment, his heart feels is the most intimate experience of his life.

He has laid with a woman before, even had children with her...but here in this moment with Ishita, where he has not shed a single piece of clothing, he feels more naked than he has ever before in his life.

Stripped off his armor, his defenses...exposing the most vulnerable, perhaps the most wounded part of him should have had him frightened, he realizes, instead with her it doesn't feel so.

With her he realizes, his heart is safe, he is safe. When he bleeds his wounds she doesn't run away cowering, as perhaps anyone else might have done or even use them against him; she heals him instead by words or touches or sometimes with her silence but always with acceptance.

Something shifts in his heart and he finds she has chipped away another wall erected around it, healed another wound he forgot even existed.

In the silence, that they share his heart strangely hears what they have yet to speak aloud between them - it hears how much she loves him and falls a little more in love with her than he was before.